


some talk of you and me

by gloriousmonsters



Category: Discworld - Terry Pratchett
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Gen
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-07-22
Updated: 2016-07-22
Packaged: 2018-07-25 23:32:16
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,504
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7551409
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/gloriousmonsters/pseuds/gloriousmonsters
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>'After all, the Assassin's Guild argued, there was surely no better profession for Death's granddaughter than a profession where she could, potentially, introduce a great many interesting and cultured people to her grandfather.' In another leg of the Trousers of Time, Susan Sto Helit's parents die when she's far younger and the Assassin's Guild fall over themselves to enroll her. Once there, she meets a boy almost as strange as she is.</p>
            </blockquote>





	some talk of you and me

**Author's Note:**

> Alternate description: I love all the Foe Yay fics for Susan and Teatime, but upon rereading Hogfather today I was struck by the sudden thought that if things had been different, they could have gotten along really well - and good God, would that be terrifying for everyone around them. Disclaimer: I am nowhere near familiar with all the bits and bobs of the Discworld. If I got something wrong, chalk it up to magical disturbance - this isn't anywhere near a serious fic, just a very nippy plotbunny that wouldn't leave me alone until I wrote something. Also, Susan is drawn a tiny bit off how she was in Soul Music, but I never made it past chapter 3 or so of SM so don't expect consistency with that either.

_"I_ bet  _no one wanted to_ play  _with you," said Susan. "Not the kid with no friends."_

_\- Hogfather_

 

SOMETHING MUST BE DONE WITH THE CHILD.

"Why? What's she done? Last I looked she was still playing with the horse—"

NO, ALBERT. I MEAN... WHERE IS SHE TO BE KEPT? SHE CAN BE ALLOWED A FEW MORE DAYS, TO ADJUST -

"Although if you ask me, she's a bit too calm for a kid who's just lost her parents. Granted, she knows Death as more a funny different place you go so maybe it's the same as another kid hearing 'hey, your parents have moved without you—'"

—THE REALM OF DEATH IS NO PLACE FOR A CHILD. OR AT LEAST, ONE WHO IS TO GROW UP NORMAL. AND... HER PARENTS EXPRESSED TO ME, OFTEN, THE WISH THAT SHE GROW UP NORMAL. A pause. WELL. AS NORMAL AS POSSIBLE.

"—but wouldn’t a kid hearing their parents have run off somewhere without them still get more upset than this? I mean, not that I’m the expert on stable homes—”

ALBERT, WHERE DOES ONE SEND CHILDREN?

“What? Oh, right. Well, depends on how much money you have, but usually—”

A SCHOOL, PERHAPS?

“Yeah, sounds about right. Kids should learn something. Even if it’s all about breaking noses and choosing the right teachers to suck up to.”

A SCHOOL HAS ALREADY SENT A LETTER. THEY HEARD OF THE ACCIDENT, AND OFFER BOTH THEIR CONDOLENCES AND HELP. THEY ARE WILLING TO TAKE SUSAN ON VERY SHORT NOTICE, IN THE MIDDLE OF THEIR SCHOOL YEAR.

“That’s a piece of luck that sounds like it’s got a nice sharp _but_ lurking at the bottom of it.”

I HAVE MIXED FEELINGS ABOUT THIS SCHOOL.

“You’ve got feelings about a school?”

BUT I SUPPOSE IT IS NOT ABOUT WHAT I WANT. IT IS ABOUT SUSAN GETTING A GOOD EDUCATION, AND FITTING IN. FITTING IN IS THE ROOT OF BEING NORMAL, IS IT NOT?

“Suppose so.”

I SHALL ASK HER IF SHE IS INTERESTED.

“Hold on, what’s the school?”

Outside the door, among the mists of Death’s dark country, a girl playing with the mane of a tall horse looked up as Death’s shadow fell over her. She smiled and reached out to take his bony hand.

SUSAN. DO YOU THINK YOU WOULD LIKE TO GO TO THIS SCHOOL?

Susan frowned, thinking over her response. “Do I have to go to school?”

YOU MUST GO TO SCHOOL TO BE NORMAL, AND YOUR PARENTS WANTED YOU TO BE RAISED AS NORMALLY AS POSSIBLE.

“Oh.” Susan accepted the rich parchment handed to her, and struggled with the cursive. “The Assassin’s Guild?” she said. The name meant very little to her. Fourteen was the minimum age for clients of the Assassin’s Guild, and her parents saw no point in her knowing much before she was of age to be potentially inhumed. They suffered, in that case, from the oft-fatal urge to delay ‘the talk’ that many parents have. “Don’t they kill people?”

MANY PEOPLE KILL PEOPLE. THE ASSASSIN’S GUILD DOES IT OCCASIONALLY, AND FORMALLY, AND ARE PAID FOR IT.

“Oh. What else do they do?”

Death shrugged. THEY WEAR A LOT OF BLACK.

“Very well,” Susan said. She’d much rather stay in Death’s country, but at least these people sounded like they liked her grandfather. “It sounds agreeable.”

GOOD, Death said, with some relief. Mixed feelings aside, he had been dreading a much longer period of sorting through schools and options.

“They say I’m a little young for them.”

THEY USUALLY TAKE IN CHILDREN OF TWELVE, BUT YOU ARE NEARLY THAT AGE AND THEY ARE WILLING TO MAKE AN EXCEPTION.

“Right,” Susan said, outwardly composed, inwardly filling with dread. She’d been to a school or three so far in her life, and without fail she’d been the odd one out. Never moving in quite the same time as other people, never making friends. Now that she was committed to this course, she was determined not to show weakness, but her expectations were falling swiftly. Even here, she was sure, she’d stand out more and more until she had to disappear half the time to make things bearable.  
Still, she pens her own acceptance letter, because Susan Sto Helit does not do things halfway or leave them undone for long. Much as she spent the first night after her parents died mourning and then tried to get on with things, she spends the evening with her regrets and fears and then starts packing.

At least, she reflects, all her favorite clothes are the right color already.

* * *

  
Although she did not know it, certain members of the Assassin’s Guild did not agree with her admittance either.

The girl was younger than their usual pupils, they pointed out.

Lord Downey answered that just last year they had made an exception for a ten-year-old boy. Someone, at this point, muttered something about what an error that had been. Lord Downey smiled politely and invited the speaker to share their opinion again, at which point they promptly forgot it.

The girl might be of noble birth, others said, but such a… ahem… unique family… was it proper?

 _Death’s granddaughter_ , Lord Downey pointed out. If the Guild of Assassins considered any god their patron—which they did not, seeing as they were a secular and accepting sort of Guild—would it not be Death?

Someone in the back volunteered that they didn’t think Death was a god, was he, wasn’t he more of a _concept?_

Lord Downey inquired whether he’d called the meeting to debate about Death, and it was generally agreed he had not.

Still, the someone from the back said. Death’s granddaughter, fair enough, the prestige it would gain for the Guild (naturally and quietly, of course—nobody in the Guild would even be heard to whisper of it) made for a compelling reason to take her—but was it really _fair?_ Wouldn’t being Death’s granddaughter give her an edge that the average student didn’t possess?

“Gerald,” Lord Downey said, “all of our students have an edge the average man does not possess. The very fact of being admitted to our school places them on a different level than nobility, to say nothing of the common man. _Fair_ is a childish word, and it has no place here.” He shrugged. “Besides, she’s Death’s _adopted_ granddaughter. I doubt she’ll be walking through walls and stealing souls away.”

Everyone had a bit of a genteel chuckle at Gerald’s expense.

This would have been of no importance to Susan in the long run, except that the task of finding where to put her in the crowded dormitories fell to Gerald. The Guild did not believe in gender-segregated housing; it was best if their students learned that the fine distinctions between fellows and gels grew blurry and irrelevant when sharp objects were involved at a young age. That said, Downey had suggested that Susan be placed with another girl, seeing as she was accustomed to all-girl schools—ease her in.

Gerald considered the request for a while, then placed Susan with the only boy who had a room to himself. It was only reasonable, he told himself. Only _fair._ And it had quite slipped his mind that Jonathan Teatime did not share a room for a reason (frankly, a great deal of reasons), or at least that was what he would tell Lord Downey. If he’d placed her with another student it would have been three to a room, and that might make things crowded, and there was nothing so _common_ as a crowd.

Besides, the boy was a younger student, admitted out of the usual turn of the year, like her. They would have a lot to talk about, provided nobody’s tongue got mysteriously ripped out. It would be an odd thing to happen, but odd things seemed to happen a lot around little Jonathan.

If any of her former teachers had been present, they would have been able to testify that strange things happened around little Susan too. But they weren’t so Gerald made his assignment and went away whistling and only slightly guilty, and Susan arrived three days later with the first snowfall, looking like the ghost of a dead child with her huge silent eyes and black clothing. As she stood in the courtyard looking up at the dormitory and waiting for someone to notice her, she saw a pale figure appear and then disappear in a window—so quickly that she blinked and rubbed her eyes, wondering if she was seeing things that weren’t there for once. It would be a nice change from seeing everything that was there.

If it hadn’t been for the dusting of snow, she might have missed the footfall behind her. As it was, she whirled around just in time to face the boy as he halted an inch or two from her.

“Hello!” said the boy. His eyes, which were far too close to Susan’s for comfort, were mismatched. “I’m Teatime. Jonathan Teatime. What’s _your_ name?”

**Author's Note:**

> I've gotten a bit further than this, but overall this is turning out longer than I expected so this is as good a place to break as any. Expect the next chapter when I have a bit of spare time to spend on it; I've got a few fun ideas I need to write out still, although I'm not sure how long they'll run. (And for the curious, the line quoted in the description was one that didn't quite make it into the final version of this chapter that I couldn't let go).


End file.
